@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Applied Science, Faculty of"@en, "Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Asghari, Zahra"@en ; dcterms:issued "2021-05-14T14:13:46Z"@en, "2021-05"@en ; dcterms:description """Close your eyes. Wait...never mind. Keep your eyes open. Recall a time you were in a public space - a street, park, plaza, etc. Are you seeing this memory through your own eyes or are you looking at yourself? How do you feel? What details do you remember? Is this a good memory? Has that experience had a lasting effect on you? These are the stories of women as they try to answer these questions in my quest to explore perception and embodiment of space through film. And, a research into phenomenology as a methodology to understand how the embodied experiences of women influence their occupation of public space in a patriarchal society. An occupation that should go beyond the basic concerns of safety and begin to examine the multiplicity and thickness of experience. So, I invite you to imagine a future where the necessary societal shifts have occurred and safety is not our main and only concern for how women feel and use space. This is a personal project. What is a woman’s embodied experience of public space in this future? This film is a look at one possible version of that – my version – based on my experiences, memories, aspirations, dreams, imagination. This is a feminist thesis."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/78351?expand=metadata"@en ; skos:note "agora | three storieswomen & public spaceagora | three storieswomen & public spaceZahra AsghariBachelor of Sciences in Architecture with distinction, McGill University, 2017Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in The Faculty of Graduate Studies, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Architecture ProgramCommittee:Tijana Vujosevic - Chair & MentorSara Jacobs - InternalFiona Jones - ExternalLeslie Kern - ExternalThe University of British Columbia Zahra Asghari, May 2021 ©“The subject of feminism is thus constituted ‘not by sexual difference alone, but rather across languages and cultural representations; a subject engendered in the experiencing of race and class, as well as sexual, relations; a subject, therefore, not unified but rather multiple, and not so much divided as contradicted” - Gillian Rose, quoting Teresa de Lauretis in Feminism and GeographyiiiAbstractClose your eyes. Wait…never mind. Keep your eyes open. Recall a time you were in a public space - a street, park, plaza, etc. Are you seeing this memory through your own eyes or are you looking at yourself? How do you feel? What details do you remember? Is this a good memory? Has that experience had a lasting effect on you?These are the stories of women as they try to answer these questions in my quest to explore perception and embodiment of space through film.And, a research into phenomenology as a methodology to understand how the embodied experiences of women influence their occupation of public space in a patriarchal society. An occupation that should go beyond the basic concerns of safety and begin to examine the multiplicity and thickness of experience. So, I invite you to imagine a future where the necessary societal shifts have occurred and safety is not our main and only concern for how women feel and use space.This is a personal project.What is a woman’s embodied experience of public space in this future? This film is a look at one possible version of that – my version – based on my experiences, memories, aspirations, dreams, imagination.This is a feminist thesis.vivLand AcknowledgementI would like to acknowledge that this thesis was conceived, developed, and written on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil- Waututh nations. These past 8 months, while working on this project, I went on countless walks to escape my computer screen, and I usually wound up by the water, along the seawall, where the Squamish village of Senakw used to be. In 1869 it became Indian Reserve No.6, where Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples were relocated until 1913 when the federal government forced them out of their homes under the Indian Act and burned down their village. This land has provided me peace, beauty, and solace, and I am grateful for it. Still, it is important to recognize that we are reaping the benefits of stolen land and one step we can take as settlers is to recognize how we are using this land and how we can improve.viiTable of ContentsFront MatterEnd MatterPart IWellPart IISo ThenAbstract iiiNotes 109BibliographyAppendix AAppendix B117120122Story 1FrancaAyan16888Story 4 37Memory...and another thing 19Story 5 49Figure Citations 113On phenomenology 5Women’s (our) trauma 41Right...architecture 29Another thing about memoryI guess this is it...51105Story 7What now?šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ SquareDhiyaLet’s talk about filmsFilm blurb597591788195AcknowledgmentList of FiguresThesis StatementLand AcknowledgementixxxiiivStory 2 17Looking back 61Story 3 35Story 6 57ixviiiAcknowledgementWriting a thesis in isolation is no easy task, but there are a few people in my life who helped me get here.Thank you to the dream team of Tijana, Sara, Fiona, and Leslie for your insightful comments, thoughtful advice, and infectious energies. Thank you to all the women who participated in my research and shared their stories with me.Thank you to my parents for always supporting me and answering my never-ending why’s. Thank you to Katie for being my in-house advisor and regularly barging into my room. And thank you to Myriam for your enthusiastic proofreading and editing. As they say, it takes a village.xixPart I | Wellfig 1. Participant A Memory Sketchfig 2. Phenomenological snapshotfig 3.Dominant phenomenological timelinefig 4. Feminist phenomenological timelinefig 5. Integrated phenomenological timelinefig 6. Participant B Memory Sketchfig 7. Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in an Interiorfig 8. Pierre Bonnard’s Le Jardinfig 9. multiple exposure living roomfig 10. film | memory stillsfig 11. Chapel of St. Igantius door handlefig 12. Stairway kitchenfig 13. Linenfig 14. Seattle Freeway Parkfig 15. Plazasfig 16.Plaza figure ground studies.fig 17. Sinking ship garagefig 18. Participant C Memory Sketchfig 19. Participant D. Memory Sketchfig 20. Women’s spacefig 21. Plaza memories stillsfig 22. Overview of the women’s relationship with the ‘agora’fig 23. Participant E. Memory Sketch. fig 24. bedroomfig 25. photographed instances of the male gazefig 26. postmemory of women in publicfig 27. Participant F. Memory Sketchfig 28. Participant G. Memory SketchPart II | So thenfig 29-32. thesis series - fragmentsfig 33-34. thesis series - texturesfig 35. thesis series - pathwayfig 36. thesis series - blurfig 37-42. thesis series - walking sequencefig 43. thesis series - roses3468101820202326293030313233.343637384244485354545658707277808283List of Figuresfig 44-46. thesis series - fragmentsfig 47-51. thesis series - plaza fragmentsfig 52-72.thesis series - šxwƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ squarefig 73. thesis series - VAGfig 74. agora | three stories title cardfig 75-95. agora | three stories - Franca stillsfig 96-116. agora | three stories - Dhiya stillsfig 117-137. agora | three stories - Ayan stillsfig 138. thesis series - treesfig 139. thesis series - landscapefig 140. thesis series - self portrait848692949698100102104106107xiiiThesis StatementA phenomenological and narrative approach to the design of public spaces can de-centre the naturalized attitudes of the design process and improve women’s embodied experiences of the public realm.Part IWellField MemoryPublic space as a personal spaceNegative stands outRetelling series of events. No emotional details.1Story 1How I feel in public depends on the kind of space I’m in, who I’m surrounded with, purpose for being there. For the most part, if you’re in a public space it’s for a reason, so you’re usually happy or clearing your mind...focusing on one thing. So usually it is a positive feeling to be in a public space. I think when you’re alone, you’re usually either enjoying something as a personal experience or thinking about something and working through a personal thing. Whereas when you’re with people, you’re there for a social reason. I do have to say that when there is a male present, I hate saying it, but I do feel safer when there is a man present. I feel like for the most part, my experiences in plazas have been positive but one that really sticks out was probably this one time a few years back. I was in university, my friend and I met downtown at a plaza for coffee around noon. It was kind of in a central location near the LRT station, we were both doing different practicums, so downtown was the most central place. There is a plaza, bit of a park, big open fountain area and whatnot. So we met for coffee and we were on one side of the plaza, kind of in a corner away from the train stations and it was a more treed-in area. We had our coffee and eventually went our separate ways. I was making my way towards the train station on the other side of the plaza and I was listening to my music as I usually do when I’m walking or outside. And this man came up to me and they just said “you’re frowning, you shouldn’t be frowning, why don’t you smile more?” I just kind of ignored them, kept walking. Then they were actually walking along side me, just talking at me so I unplugged my headphone and wanted to address that I want my own space. “Oh, I’m just listening to my music and doing my own thing,” so leave me alone. They just kept talking to me, “you’d be much prettier if you smiled. You Closed space posing a bigger threatTension between design and safetyPhysical reaction to the memoryVictim blamingIs it normal for everyone?The presence of other people not deterring the man points to an ease and perception of socially acceptable behaviour Incident lead to not using a central, easily accessible public spaceMaintaining a positive outlookfig. 1Choice of plan view suggests it was important for her to make the sequence of events clear. Also suggests a level of detachment, which is in contradiction with a field memory.Trees and columns memorable features32should smile. You have such a nice smile,” and kept going at it and they were following me across the plaza. I eventually got to my train but they weren’t leaving me alone, so I didn’t want to get on the train because I didn’t want them following me into a closed space. So I ended up walking into a public building across from the plaza. There was not a lot of people on the main floor, so I got into the elevator thinking they would leave me alone because there was a bunch of people on this elevator but they didn’t, they just got onto the elevator with me. So I got off on the first floor that went off and they followed me onto the floor. I went into an office break room, it had a door, and I said this person won’t leave me alone. And at that point someone who was in the break room went out and spoke to this person saying you need to leave. They left me alone at that point. There were other people around in the park but everyone was doing their own thing. The pathways within the plaza are darker and you feel like you have to look twice at the situation to see someone is not okay with something. It’s a park, it’s pretty but the trees are close together and give a privacy that you don’t necessarily want. I suppose if I was just saying very, very loudly leave me alone perhaps they would leave, but even when I was in the train station people are just minding their own business, on their phones, getting on and off the train and being downtown you always have a few character that are talking to people and I think the fact that this person looked like your average working person didn’t warrant any special attention. When I remember this incident, I just kind of start shaking on the inside and I just get nervous and anxious. I haven’t really told that story to anyone before. It’s one of those things that wasn’t a fond memory, so I don’t try to bring up and remember it. And one of those things where you’re in a public space, you should feel safe, you shouldn’t have to worry about feeling uncomfortable or having people approach you when you don’t want to be approached. So I feel like, I hate saying it, but also when you’re a woman I think you are a little more aware of your safety and your surroundings. So I feel when you bring up a situation like that with other people, they are automatically like “well you need to be more careful” or “you need to be more aware of situations you are surrounding yourself with. It’s a public park in the middle of the city you shouldn’t have to be thinking extra that your safety might not be guaranteed.” So I feel like it’s not something I would want to bring up with my family, because they’re going to worry about me when I go to a park. Which they shouldn’t have to, especially when it’s the middle of the day in a very public situation. And I feel like it’s very normal for people to approach you and just talk to you when you don’t necessarily want be talked to so, it was one of those situations that kind of escalated a little bit that I shouldn’t have to worry about. I’ve only gone back to that plaza 2-3 times since the event and every time has been for big city events where there is a large group of people and I’m going with a large group of people but I have no desire to go back there myself. But I would still say that I generally feel good in public spaces and they are a positive experience. I think, well, I feel like with anything you’re gonna have positive and negative experiences at point in your life. So, you can’t focus on the bad parts otherwise you won’t go do anything. You have to find the balance. This experience made me more alert of situations and be aware of my surrounding a little more but don’t necessarily let it stop me from going back to public spaces.fig. 2 Phenomenological snapshot54On Phenomenology You are sitting in your favourite spot on the couch, wrapped up in a cozy blanket with a freshly brewed pot of tea by your side. Feeling content, you settle in to read a book that has been sitting on your table for months. This is the day. You look out the window, see the rain falling and birds jumping from branch to branch. You wonder why they do that? Are they trying to find the most comfortable branch so they can read their book too? Do birds have a written language? If they did, what would that look like? Would we ever be able to learn it or even recognize it? How did we come up with languages, anyway? Why is the Cyrillic script so different from Latin and that from the Arabic script? Why do we recognize a series of strokes as sounds? How does our brain make sense of it all? At what point in our lives does the act of reading become a subconscious action? Can you stop yourself from reading when looking at a word? How do words hold meaning? Who decided what that meaning is, and why does it change over time? Can we question these meanings and delve into their essence? Does this essence shift based on your particular bias? Does the word public mean something different to me, as an immigrant twenty-five-year-old heterosexual woman of colour, than to you as a _[fill in blank]_? How much of our reality is dictated by these inherent biases, and do your lived experiences affect your perception of the world? And the next thing you know, your tea is cold, it’s dark outside, and the birds have flown away. Maybe you will get to that book another day.Juhani PallasmaaAlberto Pérez-GomézSimone de BeauvoirJorge Otero-PaliosMartin HeideggerMaurice Merleau-PontyLuce IrigarayHelen A. FieldingDolleen Tisawii’ashii ManningRachel McCannSteven HollElizabeth GroszItalo CalvinoRoland BarthesBernard TschumiJoseph BrodskySara Ahmedphenomeno logy a r chi t e c tura l phenomeno log ya r ch i t e c tu re a n d the s en se sfeminist phenomenologyfilmQuestions of Perceptionin the same bookIndigineous - mnidoopoetthe firstinflunced by >wrote a response tofig. 3 Initial literature review of phenomenology revealing the dominant phenomenological timeline76 That train of thought and questions which left you without a single word read is phenomenology…more or less. Phenomenology is a branch of philosophy without one definitive definition because its essence is interrogation and scrutinization. It is a way of approaching the world at its basic structure, continually questioning and comparing it to the lived experience from the first-person point of view.1 The body is an essential part of this equation as everything is measured, contemplated, and defined in respect to it and the individual experience - but who are the individuals? The discourse of phenomenology has been dominated by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. They are the holy trinity of this field, inevitably referenced in any text that touches on phenomenology, and this thesis is no exception. Yet, there is something wrong with this picture of phenomenology. A discourse with its foundation in personal experience and the individual has been dominated by white, European, middle to upper-class men in academia. That is a very specific and highly privileged point of view. That is not to say that others have not theorized and published on phenomenology, but the dominant and popular discourse of the topic has systemically left their contributions in the footnotes, if not entirely disregarded. Phenomenology goes beyond revealing the sense, or meaning, in our experiences and delves into the dimensions that generate it.2 So, it is apropos to question what is generating the sense in the discourse of phenomenology itself, at the risk of becoming too self-referential. fig. 4 Results of research into ‘feminist phenomenology’ revealing a feminist phenomenological timeline98 Luce Irigaray argued that phallocentrism underlined all theoretical discourse. She highlighted the exclusion of women’s perspective through an analysis of language use in literary texts published by theorists like Freud and Descartes; her writings sought to challenge the ideas presented as universal by male theorists and accepted in academia. She is part of a canon of women theorists who have had to carve their own space in the philosophical world, and inadvertently be called feminist philosophers, psychoanalysts, and phenomenologists. That is to say, many early-twentieth-century women theorists did not self-identify as feminist thinkers but were categorized as such because they did not conform to, and rather challenged, the phallocentricity of the contemporary discourse. A quick search of ‘phenomenologists’ will not include Irigaray, Young, or even Beauvoir. It is only when the word is preceded with ‘feminist’ that the names of non-male theorists begin to populate the results. The inclusion of these theorists within the ‘feminist phenomenology’ category does not pose a problem in and of itself. However, their exclusion from the broader discussion of ‘phenomenology’ creates several issues. Namely, separating ‘feminist phenomenology’ from ‘phenomenology’ implies that theories within the former are not implicated, and therefore not pertinent, to the latter. This approach centres the phallocentric phenomenology as the established and naturalized norm; consequently, pushing non-white, non-male, and non-queer perspectives to the periphery. It situates ‘feminist phenomenology’ as separatist and reactive to the dominant phallocentric theories. In order for phenomenology to truthfully do what it has set out to, that is question the basic structure of things vis-à-vis the lived experience, it needs to acknowledge the complexity and thickness of lived experiences. To that end, this retelling and exploration of phenomenology will not distinguish between ‘feminist phenomenology’ and ‘phenomenology’ but instead offer a non-exhaustive and inclusive discussion of key thinkers in the discourse, which is an ironically feminist approach.fig. 5 Integrated phenomenological timeline - focusing on persons of interest for this thesis11101312 Maurice Merleau-Ponty published his book, Phenomenology of Perception, in 1945 with the aim of focusing on the formation of the human awareness of the world.3 He pointed at the inadequacy of scientific and empirical methods at capturing the human experience and saw phenomenology as a way of getting to the essences. He did not believe that the summation of isolated facets of human behaviour would reveal a whole; only a holistic approach can speak to the whole of the human experience. There is a seeming paradoxicality to his definition of phenomenology, where the philosophy strives to question the naturalized attitudes, a method Al-Saji calls bracketing, with the understanding that the world already exists in its entirety the way it is supposed to. He attempts to address this when he writes, “although it is a transcendental philosophy that suspends the affirmations of the natural attitude in order to understand them, it is also a philosophy for which the world is always “already there” prior to reflection – like an inalienable presence.”4 It is important to offer some definitions at this point. A naturalized attitude is not to say the correct one but rather indicates that it has become so habitual that it is no longer visible to us because we perceive according to it. To bracket is to suspend this attitude in order to examine its fundamental structure and its reverberations.5 Phenomenological bracketing reveals the naturalizing tendencies within lived experiences with respect to ‘always already there’ worldling. In this context, the body becomes a point of departure for embodiment and perception. Merleau-Ponty posits that we inhabit space, and we relate to it.6 Perception is the manner in which we project into the world as embodied beings. We discover ourselves as part of the world on the basis of our orientation, where each body occupies the zero point.7 The subject of orientation has been more recently discussed by Sara Ahmed, where she looks at orientation through a queer lens.8 The body makes a recurring appearance throughout phenomenological texts and became the subject of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. She prefaces the book by stating her hesitation in writing a book on women. “The subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new. Enough ink has been spilled in the quarreling over feminism, now practically over, and perhaps we should say no more about it. It is still talked about, however, for the voluminous nonsense uttered during the last century seems to have done little to illuminate the problem. After all, is there a problem? And if so, what is it? Are there women, really?”9 This 1949 text might ring surprisingly true to the modern feminist who is wrestling with similar issues today (i.e. myself). Beauvoir agreed that to inhabit the world, there exists simultaneously a material body and one that is a point of view towards the world, or an orientation.10 This connection between Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty is not surprising, given they worked together while they were completing their practice teaching requirements. However, she took the concept one step further and stated that the body is not a thing but a situation.11 This implicates the body as a site of activity, change, experience, and not merely the vessels of those occurrences but inherently them. In The Second Sex, Beauvoir framed such bodily existence and its consequences within a gendered narrative, where they are different for men and women. Her book proceeded to examine a woman’s life through her phenomenological lens and continuously bring attention to the embodied experience of the woman from childhood to old age, with separate chapters on the different roles woman assume in society. What Beauvoir was trying to do, and Irigaray later stated explicitly, was bracket the phallocentricity of bodily existence. Irigaray’s Elemental Passions, a poetic prose, has been often regarded as a response to Merleau-Ponty’s later writing, The Visible and the Invisible. She challenges his naturalized attitude of the male self and argues that sexual difference precedes and underlies the intertwining of the visible and the invisible. Around the same time, Iris Marion Young was engaging with Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty’s texts to discuss the feminine body’s movement in her seminal essay “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality.” She posited that “to open her body in free active and open extension and bold outward directness is for a woman to invite objectification.”12 This objectified existence results in the distance a woman takes from her body. The implication of this distance engages Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty’s ideas of the orientation of the body in respect to the world. If we discover ourselves and define our world in relation to our body, then a distance from this body means a distorted experience of the world. Young’s text has been influential text within feminist theory and brought the phenomenological ideas of embodiment and experience into focus. The recent history of phenomenology has been highly influenced by this framework of intersectionality. Artist and scholar, member of Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation1514Theorists do not tend to write volumes on pure phenomenology, tackling existence similar to Merleau-Ponty. They use phenomenology as a vehicle to scrutinize other social issues and questions - phenomenology as a methodology. For example, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning conducts a phenomenological translation of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe concept of mnidoo since it is difficult to do so linguistically. She also points out that an experientially embodied approach is more in keeping with everyday lived-indigeneities.13 Manning’s essay necessitates an acknowledgment of phenomenology’s West- and Euro-centrism. As discussed in the essay, Indigenous cultures are inherently experiential. For example, the oral traditions of storytelling have been a method of knowledge transfer and teachings since time immemorial. Jo-Ann Archibald, an Indigenous scholar, identifies her theoretical framework within the Coast Salish and Stó:lo knowledges. She worked with Coast Salish and Stó:lo Elders, who taught her about seven principles of storywork. Respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy form the basis of experiential stories.14 Each of these principles can be linked to concept discussed by the theorists mentioned above. Holism is the holistic approach to the human experience that Merleau-Ponty identified in phenomenology. Interrelatedness and reciprocity can be associated with the concepts of perception and the orientation of the body to the world. Respect and responsibility have entered the intersectional conversations of phenomenology today among contemporary theorists, emphasizing the importance of one’s positionality and recognition of implicit biases. Colonial attitudes have dismissed, and degraded Indigenous knowledge and are only now arriving at the same conclusions that Indigenous Peoples have held to be true for generations. The systemic oppression of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities has prevented their voices from emerging in academia and engaging with theoretical topics, such as phenomenology. Without those voices, the bracketing of naturalized attitudes within phenomenology cannot fully encompass such entwined and complex experiences. Although recent years have seen the emergence of a few of these voices, it is imperative to acknowledge the ongoing disproportionate representation within the discourse. Therefore, until the day that the available literature is reflective of the diversity of lived experiences, presented attitudes must be contextualized, historicized, and their exclusions identified. Phenomenology is a channel for questioning the world around us, and there is certainly enough to challenge. What lies at the heart of this questioning is the self and our embodied experiences, with everything else reverberating from that core. The orientation of the body in relation to the world around us offers a chance at introspection and challenges the individual to define their own meaning. It is perhaps easy to categorize phenomenology as a self-centred or narcissistic field, and granted, it can be given the right mix of ego, privilege and attitude, but the ethos of the discourse at its root is one of curiosity and understanding. Those interested in phenomenological concepts are looking to find the inner workings of attitudes and realities we take for granted. The only way to enact change is to find out what is generating the problematic naturalized attitudes, get at its essence and understand how it is affecting our lived experiences. My lived experience is different from yours and different yet from the next person’s. Therefore, phenomenology is highly subjective and needs an approach that can acknowledge the diversity of embodied experiences within every attitude. Storytelling is a powerful tool that has been often undervalued in academia, where facts and figures rule, yet you are more likely to remember the story of you sitting down with your pot of tea to read your book at the beginning of this chapter than any other information thrown at you thus far. So why not talk to you about our lived experiences as women, our memories and feelings through a series of stories. After all, who wants to read theory anyway?Observer MemoryConcern with image projected to the world“What would people say” - again a concern for perceived imageIdea of constant observation leading to anxietyBelonging in a space1716Story 2Observed. I feel like I am being observed by other people all the time when I am in a public space. I feel like I am observing other people too…and judging a bit, quite frankly. And I feel like I am being judged. I guess it’s always the same. I am going to back to that but I feel like I’m being observed and kind of judged when I am with other people. When I’m alone I just don’t think about that. I don’t think about how I’m perceived because I’m alone, but every time I am with other people I keep thinking about the way they perceive me - if they think I’m being stupid or ugly…yeah, it’s what they think of me. I might be self-centred but its something I’m anxious about.I definitely feel different when I’m with women versus men but I don’t know how…I definitely feel more comfortable with other women around. I feel more confident when there are women with me because I just feel like a part of a group. In a public space…well, I guess I’m mindful of the people I am with. The other people that I don’t know, what they are going to think our relationship is. If I’m with another man, I going to be mindful that other people might think they are my boyfriend or I don’t know…it sounds stupid but yeah. I hate the lighting in the metro - too bright. I feel absolutely uncomfortable every time, I cannot get used to it. It’s terrible. In the new trains especially…I hate it. There is no way you can go unnoticed. The light is always so bright, it feels like everyone is looking at everyone.In a public space like in a park, I remember...it’s a park next to my house and there is a children’s playground and so let’s say if I’m alone, I am uncomfortable because I feel like I shouldn’t be there. I feel like people are going to think if I don’t have kids, I can’t be there. I just feel out of place. I’m thinking of a Making a point about what she was wearing a proactive response to victim blamingPersonal spaceDefeats the purpose of a public spaceAn exaggeration of the difference in scaleNo other people drawnOther people’s reaction to a situation has been brought up by multiple womenLack of programming leads to uncertainty? ambiguity? discomfort?Fig. 61918Memory...and another thing It is a warm summer afternoon. All the lights inside the house are turned off, and no one else is home except my grandmother. I have dragged a cushion from the living room for her to the front door and ask her to come sit with me while I wait for my parents to come home from work. She reluctantly agrees, grabs her blue and grey floral chador from the living room and ambles over …or maybe it was white with tiny flowers, but it definitely was not black…I think. I get on my tiptoes and unlock the metal door. I am four years old. I stand in the frame and peer out to the alley, where the occasional passerby glances over to us and flashes a quick smile. The sun is blazing, and the smell of the heated asphalt and car exhausts fill my nose. The bustle of the street is just out of earshot. Or is? Motorcycles rev their engines, and cars honk at each other continuously. The silence or perhaps noise is deafening. I feel the sharp edges of the door frame pushing into the soles of my feet. How long do we sit there? It is an eternity, and it is only a few minutes. My grandma has things to do, dinner to cook, house to clean, but I don’t let her leave. They will be home any time now. I have no memory of ever greeting my parents at that door, but the waiting is always there, at every doorway. Memories are how we process the past. It is our intangible connection to it that solely exists in our minds. Yet, it occupies a space within our cognition that we can enter, explore, search and retrieve information from. If I ask you to remember the first time you were on a plane, you will soften your gaze public space we have for festivals, I’m going to be way more comfortable if it’s crowded than if it isn’t..I don’t know why.Once when I was fifteen, I was going on a job interview but…really sketchy because I was fifteen. I got dressed up, wearing a skirt and heels but not high heels. I was in the metro by myself, maybe for the first or second time by myself, and I was going somewhere into the city. I was waiting on the platform and then a guy, maybe in his twenties or thirties, walked up to me and he just started talking to me but he was reeeaaallyyy close to my face. And then he said…I don’t even remember what he said, but I have never been so scared in my life. Then he stayed there and then he left. That’s one thing I remember. I was freaked out. Not feeling safe, also he looked like he was probably on drugs but that was the most scary thing that has happened to me in a public space. And everyone around, I could see they are looking and no one did anything.It has had a lasting effect I guess..I don’t know if it’s about space...well yeah, yeah it is because I feel like every time someone approaches me in a public space, I just feel this same feeling that other people can see but they’re not doing anything. It happens a lot that people come - strangers come - and talk to you and sometimes it’s not a dangerous situation…still everyone is a witness. I get anxious every time..I don’t know if it’s because of that..maybe that would be far fetched but I am definitely anxious when someone comes closer to me in a public space.Generally, I feel more anxious in spaces that are very open and not organized. To me, if I walk in a park and there isn’t stuff to fill the park, I’m going to feel anxious, I just don’t like it. Whereas at a cafe, even if I don’t know someone and sit next to them, I don’t feel anxious at all even though I’m close to them in proximity. I don’t know if it’s personal or…but those public spaces, I just don’t think they are working for me. I don’t want to be social in them.fig. 7-8 Pierre Bonnard painted his work from memory, trying to capture the essence of the moment through colour and composition2120to consciously remember every instance. A natural selection goes into effect in these moments. The brain identifies what is most likely important to us and chooses those experiences to remember.3 This has a couple of implications. Firstly, what is deemed important by the subconscious brain speaks to what the brain has learned to value. That is to say, past attempts at retrieval send a signal to the brain that this type of information is important and should be prioritized. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between the lived experience and how the mind stores experiences. Secondly, the subconscious method of remembering differs from the conscious effort of encoding. In day-to-day life, the brain encodes experiences through the senses. The most obvious one is visual encoding. We see something, remember its appearance, and can later be prompted to remember that memory by similar visual cues. Smell and sounds are also senses that can encode memories. For example, the smell of sautéed onions reminds me of my mom and her cooking. It makes me happy because she is a fantastic cook. This simple smell conjures a series of memories and associated emotions that flash in my mind as I prepare a meal. Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu includes an incredibly descriptive passage where the narrator is overcome by an overwhelming and mysterious sense of well-being after dipping a madeleine into tea and taking a bite. He tries to capture the memory that is eliciting such strong emotions in him, but it just seems out of reach, until a sudden moment of clarity where the memory “revealed itself ” to be Sunday mornings in his childhood when he would go into his mothers room and she would dip her madeleine in her tea and give him a bite. These types of memories, ones evoked by rather fleeting senses like taste and smell, are fragile in the sense that they could disappear if not prompted by the exact right cue.4 We also tend to rely on and trust them less. They seem too ephemeral, too intangible to be believed when, in reality, there is no evidence to support the unreliability of such memories. Visual memories are most highly regarded and value by people because if you saw it, then it must have happened, right? Neurologically, this is because the part of the brain involved in visual imagery is also responsible for visual perception. Since perception is how we project into the world as embodied beings, it is not surprising that visual images feel like the mental residue of actual events, even when they are entirely on an object and peer inside, sifting through all the flashes of memory that have been triggered by the word plane. You will try to determine which of those was your earliest experience, perhaps constructing a timeline in your mind to determine what your first trip was and interpolating based on the myriad of other information that accompanies your first time on a plane. Once you remember, you might say, “I think it was when I was ____ years old, we were going to ____ and I remember being so ____ to get on a plane.” The accuracy of that memory is irrelevant. What matters is that you remember it that way and base your reality around that memory. I am not insinuating that we base our lives around the first time we got on a plane but rather that our reality is constructed from our lived experiences. Our experience of the now is framed by our memories, which is at the nexus of the body, cognition, emotions, senses, environment and time, engaging all of them to be created and remembered. We also define our identities and understanding of ourselves based on what we can remember.1 Amnesiacs lose a sense of self when confronted with a lack of memories or access to those memories depending on their condition’s severity. Their actual lived experiences have not been erased or changed, but their inability to remember them strips them of their identity. They do not know who they are, what they like or dislike, what makes them comfortable or causes anxiety. They have to rediscover these traits in themselves by creating new lived experiences that they can remember and construct a new reality around them. This is a reiteration of the body at point zero as we discover ourselves on the basis of our orientation. The memories you can recall as independent episodes or events, either unprompted or on a cue, are categorized as explicit memories. They are accessible to us and can be called upon consciously. The brain can also be trained to better store and retrieve these types of memories through encoding. This is the process of associating new information meaningfully with knowledge that already exists in memory.2 The level and method of encoding will influence the ability to retrieve the information at a later date. For instance, elaborate encoding methods such as the well-known ‘memory palace’ associate new information spatially within a constructed memory that already exists. To retrieve the memory, you do not need to remember the information directly but rather locate it within the palace of existing memories. This is a conscious act that can be practiced; however, our daily lives would become unmanageable if we had fig. 9Overthinking is a version of this cycle that would become completely debilitating in this scenario.2322that do not have their reason in what I have chosen to be, but rather have their condition in the banal milieu that surrounds me.”9 One reading of this statement can link the condition he is talking about to implicit memories that affect our everyday choices in being. Merleau-Ponty’s banality is, in fact, the quotidian occurrences of our lived experiences taking place at the interface of recollection and intention, perception and fantasy, memory and desire.10 Memory is layered from one instant into another, dependent on the interlocking of each moment with the perception of the world around us, creating a thickness of time.11 This highlights the individualized and highly personal nature of memories. No two people can have the same memory of an experience because they have lived different lives. Pallasmaa writes, “we are taught to think of memory as a cerebral capacity, but the act of memory engages our entire body,” and Merleau-Ponty makes the distinction that the role of the body in memory is as the means of our communication with both time and space, beginning from the implications of the present.12,13 That is all to say that the body plays a pivotal role in the entangled relationship of memory, perception, the self and embodied experiences. It is appropriate at this time to reinstate Merleau-Ponty’s position on the distinction between perception and memory, which I share. He asserts that to perceive is to make sense from a group of givens and to remember is to “plunge into the horizon of the past and gradually to unfold tightly packed perspectives until the experiences that it summarizes are as if lived anew in their own temporal place.” He posits that perception is a prerequisite for accessing memory and not synonymous with it.14 This contrasts with the more popular idea that perceiving is remembering, leading one to re-examine the relationship between experiencing and remembering. Is to experience to perceive? Does your experience of space control your perception, or does your perception of it trigger memories and dictate your experience? What is the naturalized attitude of this thinking? A discussion of memory would be remiss without a look at forgetting. We recognize that we have forgotten something by the hole or gap that it leaves behind. It is not an awareness of what is missing but rather that something is. If explicit memories need triggers to be remembered, then in the case of forgetting, are the triggers forgotten or the memory itself? What happens to implicit memories, and do we ever become aware made up.5 This speaks to our reliance on and prioritization of visual experiences as a society, which centres the seeing body and creates a hierarchy of evidence, placing the tangible at the top. There are two modes of remembering: field and observer memories. Field memories are ones where you see the scene unfolding through your eyes, from the perspective you first experienced. In observer memories, you look at yourself in the scene from a detached perspective, a vantage point that you never actually experienced. There are a few factors that contribute to the mode in which a memory is recalled. Generally, older memories are observer memories, while recent memories are remembered from a similar perspective as the original. However, more telling is the purpose of the retrieval. When asked to focus on the feelings associated with a past experience, the memory is most likely going to be a field memory. Whereas, if the focus were on the experience’s objective circumstances, the memory will be an observer one. That means a crucial part of your recollective experience is constructed at the time of retrieval, and the emotional intensity of a memory is determined in part by the mode of recollection.6 The discussion so far has dealt with explicit memories, albeit not exclusively. However, a critical facet of our daily lives deals with implicit memories: when people are influenced by past experiences without any awareness that they are remembering.7 This is a subconscious recalling of memories that the brain deems applicable to the current scenario. If we had access to all of our past in the form of explicit memories, we would be tempted to call upon it at every moment to make sure it is still there, in a perpetual cycle of retrieval and verification.8 By definition, implicit memories do not involve the recollection of source information, so we may generate plausible but ultimately inaccurate sources to make sense of how we feel or react in a particular situation. Although we should be mindful not to attribute every unexplainable thought or feeling to an implicit memory. This pitfall notwithstanding, the subtle effects of our past lived experiences on the present are an essential part of our story. If we are unaware that something is influencing our behaviour, we are unlikely to change it. Merleau-Ponty states, “my life is made up of rhythms Refer to figure 10 for an illustration of this phenomenonNot just mothers, but our community and society2524“All repression is thus the passage from first person existence to a sort of scholastic view of this existence, which is sustained by a previous experience, or rather by the memory of having had this experience, and then by the memory of having had this memory, and so on, to the point that in the end it only retains its essential form.”15Repression is the act of subduing by force, in this case, forcefully subduing an experience. It is often discussed in the context of trauma, which is where most cases of repressed memories are seen. Per Merleau-Ponty’s definition, trauma is remembered through the act of remembering, until all that remains is the essentials of that memory. This ties back with Al-Saji’s point about experience as an “ambiguous and dense knot of relations, a temporally entangled and non-linear flow.” Memory is our attempt to make sense of this entanglement and assert order to the divergent nature of our lived experiences. In essence, memory is an unreliable narrator of our life as we experience it because it filters it through our past experiences, knowledge, biases - through our perception of the world surrounding us - and stores that version of the reality. In the process of recalling, the story is passed through the same filter of perception, which may or may not have shifted. Therefore, memory is unreliable for the factual retelling of experience, but again, that is not the point of experiential memory. Memory is our link to time. It is how we perceive it and come to understand it. It is our own personal method of time travel. Phenomenological approaches to memory have inherently linked it to time, but if we revisit the phallocentrism of predominant theory, it begs the question: what if gendering and racialization make a difference in how time is experienced—a difference in the very structure of temporal experience and not merely in its coloration or content?16 This has significant ramifications in our evaluation and understanding of memory and encourages the phenomenological bracketing of the naturalized attitudes towards memory. In Young’s analysis of of forgetting an implicit memory? One form of such forgetting is the repression of memories, and Merleau-Ponty writes the following on the topic:how to move like a girl in a social world permeated by a Western phallocentric gaze, she points to the habits that we acquire as women to find our orientation in that world.17 These habits are developed with time as we experience the social world and are passed down through our mothers telling us not to talk to strangers, dress modestly, be nice and never escalate situations. These habituations have become internalized to the point that they could be categorized as implicit memories. The gendering of memory is not separatist but rather creates a room to bracket and have a conversation without centring the male experience.fig. 10This is an exploration into film as a methodology and the visualization of memory. A short film was made from a collection of personal photographs and videos. The film was projected onto a surface and recorded. The following week the recording was projected and recorded again. This process was repeated multiple time and each time the film is recorded, it is further distorted to a point where it is no longer about the content of the original video. Each iteration is akin to recalling of a memory and its distortion, the repression of it.Click here for the full film.2726Week 4 Week 5Week 2 Week 3Week 1fig. 112928Right...architecture Have you ever been in a room that inexplicably makes you feel good, like a comforting hug? Slid your hands down a banister as you walk down the stairs, and it feels like it’s holding your hand right back? Or entered an enclosed space that makes you feel like you can breathe again? Doesn’t that feel just amazing, like you have discovered a treasure among the rubble? You can’t quite put your finger on what is causing that feeling in you, but there is no denying it. You turn to the person to your left, and you recognize the same sparkle in their eyes and ease in their body. You know that they share your experience of this moment. You turn to the person on your right, and they have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Theorists of architectural phenomenology have sought to define that feeling, verbalize it and identify its elements so that the effect can be applied to other buildings. The discourse of architectural phenomenology is relatively small. Only a few theorists contribute, such as Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Péréz-Gómez, and even fewer architects practice based on this philosophy, namely Steven Holl and Peter Zumthor. Much like phenomenology itself, there is not a singular way of thinking in regards to architectural phenomenology, and it is described as a “discourse” for that very reason - “a manner of investigation and design conducted mostly by individual researchers and designers who, sharing some common concerns and intentions, interpret the possibilities and results of phenomenological investigation in a wide array of ways, both conceptually and practically.”1 So while these thinkers all tend to touch on similar broader themes, A bodily reaction is unavoidable in the experience of architecture as a consequence of its verb essence.fig. 14fig. 12fig. 133130senses into five sensory systems: visual system, auditory system, the taste-smell system, the basic-orienting system and the haptic system.4 The senses do not operate exclusively and are in constant negotiation and communication with each other. Our eyes can feel the texture of a surface, our ears can see the volume of a space, and our fingers orient us to the depth of space. The sensory systems work together to facilitate our experience of the world. Merleau-Ponty wrote that his perception is not “a sum of visual, tactile and audible givens: I perceive in a total way with my whole being…which speaks to all my senses at once.”5 It is a critique of the cartesian understanding of the world, the dichotomous and exclusive thinking that only one thing can be true at a time. Holding multiple truths simultaneously disrupts the comfortable position of surety and challenges the individual to reorient themselves. Architecture is a mediator between ourselves, and the world and to properly perform that task, it must reevaluate its naturalized attitudes, which include our relationship with the body. Elizabeth Grosz states that cities are simultaneously the “loci that produce, regulate, and structure bodies.”6 She goes on to clarify that it is not a simple relation of mutual and singular determination or even of multiple determinations, where the types of bodies (racial, ethnic, class, sexual) on one plane neatly interlock with the types of cities (economic, geographic, political) on another. The corporeality, and simultaneous materiality, of the city is as complex as that of the body. To think of them as mutually exclusive is to deprive them of their complexities and fall back on a phallocentric discipline’s naturalized attitudes. The body is our point of reference for the world. We measure distance by our stride and define nearness by our reach, perceive height in relation to our own, and assess density based on our definition of personal space. The city exists through our embodied experience, and our sense of self is derived from our perception of the city.7 The entangled relationship between the built environment and ourselves is at the core of architecture, both as a noun and in its verb essence. Architecture as a noun defines a material space that can be perceived in relation to ourselves. The actions it encourages frame its corporeality through our embodied experience of space. The body is also the site of memory because memory is inherently embodied; it is encoded through our senses and prioritized based on lived experiences. We remember through our bodies as much as through our nervous system. Musicians can play pieces that they the specificity of their theories extend in different directions. However, one concept that they can all agree on is that our interaction with the built environment is a cognitive process. It is a feedback loop between us and our environment. We constantly take in information, process it through our lived experiences, knowledge, assumptions, and interact with our surroundings accordingly. This is essentially what Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty were referring to in their discussion of orientation and projecting onto the world through our perception. That is why the person to your left who shares in your orientation empathizes with your emotional reaction while the person to your right has an entirely different experience based on their lived experiences. Architecture demands interaction. It is impossible to have a passive experience of architecture because it is our point of contact with our surroundings. It is an innate part of our orientation. A bodily reaction is unavoidable in the experience of architecture as a consequence of its verb essence. There is an inherent suggestion of action in architecture - it is not merely a series of “retinal images” because a building is approached, encountered, used, related.2 This thinking invites us to reevaluate our approach to programme in design. We divide and define spaces with nouns, such as kitchen, office, foyer, balcony, etc. What happens if we start defining spaces by verbs, that is to ask how our approach to designing spaces changes if we approached them through the actions they host. For instance, the kitchen becomes a place of gathering, cooking, feeding, nourishing. On a larger scale, the public space or the city is perhaps more complex to redefine, where the actions are dependent on the individuals’ orientation, and their lived experiences will determine how they use space. Architecture straddles the worlds of the material and ethereal, objective and subjective, thought and feeling.3 It needs to respond to the very tangible circumstances of site, budget, and policy while (ideally) striving to create spaces that people want to be in. This is an intrinsically phenomenological pursuit, yet paradoxical in the same breath. It requires intellectual and conceptual exercises; however, the over-emphasis of that leads to a detachment from the physical, sensual, and embodied essence. The experience of architecture is a multi-sensory one. Pallasmaa has written extensively on this topic, where he goes beyond the five detached senses that we are familiar with. He borrows from psychologist James J. Gibson and categorizes the fig. 15-16Selected nine plazas I have distinct memories of, spanning from the age of six to today. Figure-ground studies were produced to analyze the plazas’ relation to its surrounding buildings. They also revealed the different configurations of plazas that could be further categorized into groups. On these figure-ground studies, I have outlined the paths I have taken in these spaces in yellow dashed lines. These lines show my personal exploration of these spaces and speak to the level of comfort in occupying these spaces.3332šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square Vancouver Art Gallery North PlazaPizza San Marco - VeniceNaqshe Jahan Plaza - EsfahanOceanic Plaza - VancouverFondamenta Solute - VeniceOld Town Square - PragueOlympic Plaza - CalgaryNizami Plaza - BakuOslo Opera House - Oslo0 25m 50m 100mšxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square - VancouverPizza San Marco - VeniceNaqshe Jahan Plaza - EsfahanOceanic Plaza - VancouverFondamenta Solute - VeniceOld Town Square - PragueOlympic Plaza - CalgaryNizami Plaza - BakuOslo Opera House - Oslofig. 17Field MemoryInterpreted prompt in terms of comfortAuditory reading of spaceVersions of claustrophobia or agoraphobia?Social cause / event3534do not consciously recall but their fingers do, a phenomenon called muscle memory. In these instances, the musical piece is remembered as a whole entity and cannot be played in sections or started from anywhere else but the beginning. If interrupted, they have to start over because the fingers only know the music based on its sequence and in relation to the notes before and after it. The body internalizes a repeated action to the point that the conscious mind detaches from it, and the memory is not merely cerebral anymore; it is muscular, it is embodied. When climbing a set of stairs, if one of the steps is slightly higher, narrower, wider, or has any irregularities compared to the other steps, it is almost certain you will trip. The body anticipates a regularity based on its previous experiences of stairs and remembers the act of climbing stairs as a repetitive movement. We are taught to think of memory as a cerebral capacity, but the act of memory engages our entire body.8 The body can remember what the eyes forget. The embodied memory becomes implicit; it affects our actions without conscious thought or understanding of the root condition. Architecture as the mediator facilitates the encoding of these memories, both cerebral and embodied. It is a visual medium and thus most readily believed and accepted but it also has tactile, olfactory, and auditory qualities. It invites a holistic experience; in fact, it demands it. And this requires us to strive for an understanding of the human condition. Architecture cannot be simply reduced to its functional elements, it needs to respond holistically to the embodied experience. A phenomenological reading of architecture can aid us in better addressing this embodied experience. We need to start by bracketing architecture itself and questioning its inherent naturalized attitudes. It is no longer controversial to say that architecture as a discipline and profession is male-centric, and men design according to their own lived experiences and orientation. To account for the woman’s lived experience requires women architects, designers, and thinkers to engage with the discipline. However, it is not simply enough to produce women-only spaces, because they are separatist by nature.9 They are a reaction to the dominant male culture and raise questions such as what it is to be a woman and to occupy space as a woman, concepts Beauvoir raised in The Second Sex in 1949. Seventy-one years later, we need to move beyond the separatist refusal and begin to think about the occupation of space in different terms. Story 3How I feel in a public space depends on the space. I don’t like crowds, so if I’m in a crowd I feel a little bit uncomfortable but then also sometimes when you’re in a super empty space you feel a little uncomfortable as well. But familiar spaces are where I feel the most comfortable. I think when you are with people that you know, you feel a lot more comfortable. I feel about the same though whether I am with other girls or guys.The most recent time I was in a plaza was when we went shopping near Vancouver Art Gallery. There was a protest going on for the Indigenous people out East for their fishing industry. So it was a very loud space with lots of people but you could tell that everyone had like this collective meaning or reason why they were there. There was always the people that were walking past or randomly there, kind of like us but then we stopped and listened for a bit. We weren’t really in the crowd, we were kind of on the outside of it and there were three of us there so I was surrounded by my friends so I felt comfortable, we weren’t in the middle of it. I think I would have gotten more anxious if we moved more into the crowd. And I feel like because we were just passing by, we were supposed to be more observers in a way. We didn’t have an intention of coming down and being part of this protest, so it felt more like our place to observe what was going on.It was a positive experience because it was neat to see that something that is happening all the way on the other side of country is being protested here and we witnessed it and I don’t think there was any other way I would have known that was happening in our city.I have definitely had negative experiences though. Especially at night or also Field MemoryRelated to agoraphobiaCultural difference or unfamiliarity? Social cause / eventNeed sightlines to exit routesEmotions not stemming from space but rather settingThese changes lead to an inherently different experience of the cityfig. 19Unfamiliarity leads to feeling unsafeCasual experience of space not the norm anymore - changing the use and purposes of spaces. An observer viewfig. 18Different actions taken by the groups of people3736Story 4I feel normal in public spaces…usually. Less good at night, I would say, or if I don’t know where I am. I feel fine in a familiar public space, generally. I feel severely fearful of strangers. It depends were I am though. If it is somewhere familiar, even if it is at night, I wouldn’t be as worried. I think as long as I am not alone I feel more secure. Certain places I have traveled, if there is a few of us girls I would still feel nervous. Whereas here, if there is a few of us girls I would feel fine. The last big event I was in a plaza was the BLM demonstration in June. I didn’t feel nervous being in a plaza, I felt nervous being in a crowd of that many people. But I guess that can only happen in a plaza. I think about the fact that there were lots of people and we were kind of in the middle. If I was there by myself and no one else was there it’s easy to see how to leave the plaza, where it ends and starts. But with that many people, I know what direction I was facing, but you couldn’t actually see where the stairs were or where the road was. I always think bad things happen at those things, that’s my outlook. Nothing happened that day…not that I was aware of. But yeah, lots of people. I feel anxious whenever I think about that event…because of the crowd and Covid and it’s one of those things where it’s a powerful movement but not a happy thing. People come together for a good cause but still due to a bad situation.My negative experiences in plazas… I feel like it makes you be more hyper aware or change your habits of where I would walk or where I would go certain times of day. Like if I’m walking home, I’m not going to walk up the greenway at night, I’m going to walk up a main street. I feel like those type of decisions are based off of experience but also just things I live by.just being in new spaces…like coming to a new city you always make sure you look out for the areas you don’t want to be by yourself. And then also putting your headphones in and your hood up, just making yourself look like you’re on a mission and going somewhere is a way to protect yourself from people thinking you don’t know where you are. I think people don’t normally see people wandering about space any more so you bring more attention to yourself that way.I guess going back to being with a man or being with your girl friends, I think there is a difference actually. Especially, at night and in new places. When you are with your partner or a guy or boyfriend or whatever you just feel like you don’t have to be as wary but then when you’re with a girl friend even though you feel more safe being with someone, you’re still a little bit more on edge, more so than you would feel with a man.fig. 20 Women’s space39384140Women’s (our) Trauma I don’t know about you, but I try to look as unapproachable as possible when I walk outside at night. Head down, one hand firmly on my bag and the other in my pocket or swinging purposefully by my side, long and steady strides, and a neutral facial expression. I have done this for as long as I can remember without ever being explicitly told to do so, and I know I am not alone in this, and I am certainly not the first to talk about it. To borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s words, the subject is irritating, especially to women, and it is not new; perhaps we should say not more about it. Yet, here I am. “At night, in most cities, all women are agoraphobic,” writes Esther da Costa Meyer in her essay, “La donna è mobile,” on the appearance of agoraphobia and the imbrication of women, urban space, and pathology.1 Agoraphobia, the fear of, or in, open spaces, constitutes over fifty percent of all phobic disorders. Approximately eighty-five percent of agoraphobes are women. Costa Meyer attributes this to the inscription of social, as well as sexual, difference in urban space.2 The places that agoraphobes avoid and those they designate as shelters have to do with typologies that are a metaphor for situations they fear or desire. She argues that agoraphobia represents a parody of the modern constructions of femininity. In the past two decades, feminist scholars have published studies that assert that gender-specific neuroses are outlets of resistance to patriarchy, where repressed impulses reveal themselves symbolically through the body. This symbolism is rooted in a refusal of a phallocentric The analysis of femininity can be its own thesisThe subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new.–– Simone de Beauvoirfig. 21I recorded walking through four plazas in Vancouver, in early November. Once back at home, I tried to remember the spaces I visited. I wrote down each flash of memory and reconstructed the videos into a 40-second film depicting my recollection. It should be noted that most of these spaces were deserted due to Covid advisories and restrictions.Click here for the full film.4342power anchored in language. Agoraphobes avoid situations that give unconscious symbolic expression to their hidden fears or wishes, such as an unhappily married woman who fears tunnels.3 The scrutinization of this illness has revealed an underlying naturalized attitude that only reveals itself to those who have researched the subject with an eye to women’s issues. The paradox of this bodily protest, however, is that by keeping women at home, it is reproducing the sexual division of labour at the root of the neurosis. On an experiential level, agoraphobia is a crisis of bodily boundary.4 The disorder can initiate a sense of separateness from one’s body, and if we recognize Bordo’s assertion that the body, not just the mind, is a ‘medium of culture,’ then it follows that women’s self-identity is affected by the attitude of the cultural environment towards her body.5 The loss of that bodily boundary questions the very self. Markedly, agoraphobes identify a loss of self when in public, where their boundary is blurred to the extent that they can no longer recognize where they begin and end. Someone without this neurosis is constantly negotiating this boundary through their senses and in relation to their surroundings, orienting themselves in the social space. However, an agoraphobic person cannot assert their own “subjective spatiality in the face of the spaces of others.” 6 They can become overwhelmed and anxious, triggering bodily responses, including panic attacks. It is important to note that the anxiety is not caused by an inability to socialize but rather by the fear of becoming the object of others’ attention. This object-subject duality of a woman’s lived experience was discussed by Marion Iris Young in her essay, “Throwing Like a Girl,” where she wrote that an “essential part of the situation of being a woman” is the ever-present possibility of only being regarded as a body that is the object of another person’s intentions, rather than a subject with thoughts and intentions.7 This would not be a discussion of neuroses and trauma if I did not mention Freud, but that is as far as I will go. Instead, I will look at the theories of Karen Horney, a contemporary of Freud who challenged his emphasis on the male sexual organ (read phallocentrism) and formed the Neo-Freudian discipline with Alfred Adler. She believed that social and cultural differences were more significant constituents of personality fig. 22 Historical overview of the women’s relationship with the ‘agora’4544~ 800BC - 476 AD~ 400 - 1400Ancient GreeceAgoraForumMarketPlazaStreetsStreetsStreetsSquaresPlazaHomeAncient RomeMiddle Ages~ 1400 - 1600RenaissanceSuffregette50sCivil Rightswomen were still domestic labourers and expected to do their ‘womenly duties’?Women’s Liberation~ 1900 - 2000~ 1600 - 1900~ 2000 - nowAge of Revolutionwomen viewed as property, not meant to be outside of the home and not allowed into the agora PUBLIC SPACE AS PLACE OF EXCLUSIONPUBLIC SPACE AS PLACE OF STIGMAPUBLIC SPACE AS PLACE OF CONFLICTcertain rights granted to women but still not allowed to participate in public discussions or officeJoan Kelly argues women did not have a Renaissance and no real progress was made in terms of rights and mobilitywomen often led protests and revolutions until it became violent, at which point men took overwomen took to the streets to demand their rightsthe persona of the perfect housewife was disseminated after the war that relegated women back into the dimestic sphereblack women played key roles in the civil rights movement and participated in all the protests accross the statesonce again, women took to the streets to demand equal rights and an end to patriarchyis there a reality where public space is not a site of violence and contention for women?women subordinate to men and domestically inclined. Only poor women worked at markets and thus it was stigmatized and women’s mobility linked to socio-economic class4746socialize with each other while escaping public scrutiny. The proposal uses the public realm opportunistically by designing sites of destination along already popular routes that can be used as study carrels, fitness venues, and outreach program spaces. Mobile loitering provides a “right to the city that is becoming less and less attainable for many young women in Niamey.” 11 It is a reclamation of the public realm for women within an increasingly patriarchal society. Public space holds historical meaning to the women’s movement and the many waves of feminism. They have been sites of protest innumerous times and become venues for women to be seen and their voices heard on their own terms. In eighteenth-century Europe, protests were often started by working-class women, and men joined as they intensified.12 Many of these women worked as vendors in the open-air food markets before being moved to the newly built enclosed market halls and systemically relegated to the realm of the private home. The early twentieth century saw the women of the suffragette movement flood the streets of major cities demanding the right to vote. In the last four years, public space has been the site for the Black Lives Matter protests, preceded by the climate march and the women’s march before that. The public realm continues to be a deeply charged space that has left its mark on women’s consciousness. Leslie Kern writes, “the extent to which violations of women’s personal space via touch, words, or other infringements are tolerated and even encouraged in the city is as good a measure as any for me of how far away we actually are from the sociable – and feminist – city of spontaneous encounters.”13 The woman as an independent individual with a right to her space is a concept theoretically in effect in our modern western society, but when we bracket right to space and analyze its naturalized attitude, it becomes clear that a right to space implies a right from, as in demanding this right from another entity, in this case, the man. This still centres the male-dominated space and grants the right to women to occupy space. It is an attitude that operates within the patriarchy and, as discussed, is inherently traumatic and part of a collective memory that is affecting our embodied experiences every day. and neuroses than merely repressed sexual desires. Her method of psychoanalysis offered a holistic and humanistic view of the psyche. Horney stated that society promoted women’s dependence on men and that women were seen as objects of charm and beauty - an act we now call objectification of women. When considering trauma, psychoanalysis established the modern practice of verbal therapy, where patients are encouraged to talk about their childhood and past lived experience to uncover the root of their neuroses. So, when writers like Irigaray and Cixous postulate that patriarchy is a cause of neuroses, it is not far fetched to categorize women’s embodied experiences in a patriarchal society as a form of trauma. In her book, Traumata, Meera Atkinson argues that patriarchy perpetuates trauma, making it inherently traumatic.8 The implication is that the gendered lived experience, which affects our perceptions, understanding of self and is perpetuated by our memories, is in its essence traumatic and therefore fundamentally different from the naturalized lived experience, which is male. The concept of the woman in public has historically been a point of contention. The term ‘public woman’ refers to sex workers, and to avoid the misfortune of being mistaken for one, women had to be chaperoned by their male relatives or older women in Victorian London.9 Although the definition of femininity and virtue have shifted since then, the types of places where a woman does not feel out of place are not drastically different. Spaces of consumption, culture and entertainment are still viewed as the primary settings for women’s public lives to unfold. Granted, there are no strict rules that forbid the mobility of women in spaces in western countries (la donna è mobile, after all), women are keenly aware when they are occupying a male-dominated realm. They also know that they are placing themselves in a vulnerable position, inviting unwanted attention and the threat of violence.10 This is, of course, before taking into account sexuality, race and differently-abled bodies. Once these are factored in, the realm of culturally acceptable spaces shrinks even further to the point that to occupy any public space is to make yourself vulnerable. This begs the question, which public is the space for? Mariam Kamara, founder and principal of Atelier Masomi, set forth a proposal tackling this question in the city of Niamey in Niger. The project, titled mobile loitering, seeks to create spaces along the city streets that allow young girls to Field MemoryIntentionality of useSafety or comfort? Perhaps one and the sameFeeling unsafe because of copsRepeated use of ‘girls’ is of note. Assertion of authority?* Female roommateQuestions the ‘publicness’ of these spacesWhat is the threshold? Drawn from her perspectivefig. 23The flashlight highlighting the “illegal” conduct that supposedly warranted the interaction Depicts the instance the police made contact4948Story 5Public space...I think it depends on if it is a public space used for circulation, like the seawall then I feel pretty safe because everyone surrounding me there shares one intention of walking. If it is a public space, like a plaza in false creek, I normally just don’t spend time in them alone unless I am with somebody, like we plan to meet there and we’re talking but I don’t know if I have ever hung out at a public space by myself. There is a big difference if I am with someone or not. Even when I’m with just one other person, I feel super comfortable at all times of the day but by myself, I just don’t spend time in public spaces. I try to read sometimes but that just doesn’t work out either..I get distracted. There was this incident at Habitat Island in False creek, which is a little island that juts out and people call it beer island because a lot of people go there and chill at night and drink and whatnot. The place is just off the seawall with a rocky path that takes you to it and across from BC place and science world, so at night you get all the lights and its super nice but it technically closes at 11pm. I used to go with this group of friends and some of them were guys and you would feel quite safe. Just this past summer, I was there with my roommate, just the two of us, and there was a really intense moment with the police that we came across and then after that it’s like every time it was just the two of us going to public spaces at night, we would always be watching for cops. Which is just a ridiculous idea that if you’re chilling at kits beach at night with one can of beer or something like that and you have to look out for cops. Even the way that they talked to us, they were like “girls, the park is closed hurry up and leave” and flashing their flashlights on the pavement and just “girls, hurry up!” It got me thinking about public vs private, just because I was so riled up after that incident! I don’t know if it’s about noise as to why they close the park but Culture shock?Repeated mention of the auditory setting - what is the implication of sound in public spaces? When is loud, ‘too loud’ in a public space?A fence is the difference between where you can and cannot beWhat is behind the policy of closing public parks?Completely changed her experience of public spaces.Not ‘inviting’ attentionUse of outdoor public spaces increased due to the pandemic and social distancing requirements. So how do these incidents affect a woman’s experience during the pandemic as opposed to men’s experience?5150Another thing about memory My mother’s childhood was marked by revolutions and war. She received firearm training in school and spent class time knitting hats and scarves for soldiers. Air raid sirens sent them to the basement, and their food was rationed. Every week brought more martyrs home. Her mother was married off to my grandfather at the age of thirteen and had her first child at sixteen. These are a part of their lived experiences and have shaped who they are as people. Horney’s psychoanalysis would classify these as traumas experienced during the formative years and attribute personality traits or neuroses to them. The validity and the extent of that is not for me to decide or even my interest. However, these memories are a part of their realities, and therefore, affect their embodied experiences in the form of implicit and explicit memories. Is it normalized for them because it was a collective shared experience? Or do they recognize that experiencing war is not everyone’s reality, and their lived experience will always be inherently different? The first time I realized not everyone is able to speak more than one language completely changed my perception of self. I had assumed each person eventually learns at least one other language in their lives because that had been the reality around me. Suddenly, something that I believed was normal felt like a superpower. It changed my orientation; has it changed theirs? I have heard their stories and visualized them, so are they affecting me as well? The same part of the brain activates in the act of remembering and the act of imagination, everyone on the island was super quiet and in groups of 2-3 so, it wasn’t even a social distancing issue either. Before the cops came, they turned on these sprinklers that were between the rocks, to get people to leave I guess. The cops come on their ATVs, which I don’t even understand why you need ATVs along the seawall, a bike is fine. They are so loud when they come and assert their power. And when you’re walking along the seawall leaving the space, you have the patio of Tap and Barrel why do all these people get to make such a ruckus and be loud and get drunk but it’s in a privatized space. Then this natural park, or even false creek plaza, we are not allowed to occupy that space at night. How can you close a park? They are just trees, so what are you closing? Even when they were like yeah parks closed, another group said ‘I didn’t realize that it could close’ and the cops just said there’s a sign at the front that says it closes at 11 pm. That incident definitely had an impact. Just because that happened in the middle of the summer, and my roommate and I would still go to parks and public spaces after that but we would be so much more hyper aware or anxious in those spaces. There was another time we were spending time at kits beach at night and we saw those stupid ATVs on 4th avenue, and they said Beach Patrol on the side and they were tuning onto the beach. I don’t understand why you need an ATV Beach Patrol for kits beach! So, we were just sitting on the beach and there was a lot of people but we were so anxious about having another encounter or something like that. I felt like it’s pretty typical to not want to spend time alone in plazas whether day or night, not wanting to be approached in a way by anybody just from experiences as a teenager in high school or even later, where it’s like okay, yeah I just don’t want to make eye contact with people. fig. 245352She sees postmemory as a structure of intergenerational transmission of trauma, where it is a consequence of a traumatic recall at a generational remove. What sets the concept of postmemory apart from intergenerational memory is the encoded anxiety and fear that accompanies it. Unquestionably, we cannot have actual memories of someone else’s lived experiences, yet we find ourselves with flashes of not-memories when listening to these narratives. Postmemory is not memory, but it approximates its affective force. This makes it an appropriate framework to talk about women’s inherently traumatic lived experiences in a patriarchal society. Intrinsic to postmemory is implicit memory. As previously discussed, Merleau-Ponty talked about the condition of the everyday life being grounded in the surrounding world’s banality.7 If we bracket banality, it reveals the subjectivity of it. What is banal to me might not be so to you. The categorization of banality is dependent on the individual’s lived experiences and perception of the world. Up until the point I found out not everyone speaks two languages, bi- or multi-lingualism was a banal act to me, just like growing up during a war made the volatile setting of my mom’s life banal. So, when Merleau-Ponty speaks about banality conditioning the rhythm of lived experiences, he speaks of a banality that might not be shared by someone of a different orientation. It also implicates what we categorize as mundane or typical. A woman being catcalled as she walks down the street is a typical lived experience; no woman is ever shocked in this situation. Disappointed, angry, uncomfortable, harassed, unsafe, violated, sure but never really shocked. It is part of the banality of a woman’s milieu, but it does so is it possible that I have crossed my wires at some point and internalized a story that I did not personally experience? Does that matter once it has become a part of my consciousness? Do I embody their memories? This concept has been explored and researched in the context of intergenerational trauma, which is defined as the shared collective experiences of attacks on a group that may accumulate over generations. It was first identified in the children of Holocaust survivors and then the children of Japanese people in internment camps during the Second World War. The studies showed that these children exhibited signs of PTSD even though they were not present at the time of their parents’ traumatic episode.1 Transgenerational trauma transmission is an unconscious process, where the parents do not explicitly speak about their experience, but the children pick up the trauma based on the parent’s actions and approach to relationship-making.2 Most recently and in the Canadian context, intergenerational trauma has been studied with respect to the Indigenous People’s experience and specifically in residential schools. The trauma they have experienced has had extensive ramifications in their parental capacity, including elevated rates of alcohol and substance use.3 The abuse of Indigenous People at the hands of settlers has created an incredibly complex pattern of abuse and neglect within Indigenous families and communities. To tackle and address these issues is to write an important but entirely different thesis. However, an interesting facet of intergenerational trauma is the role of intergeneration memory. It is a relatively new trend in psychology and refers to the “intrafamilial remembered events that happened to parents, grandparents, or higher-generation ancestors at any time before the rememberer was born.” These are memories passed on through retold personal narratives, and because of a lack of depth and detail stemming from the fact that they are not the individual’s actual lived experiences, they rely on culturally and historically mediated collective memories.4 This study has lead to Marianne Hirch’s development of the theory of postmemory. “Postmemory” describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before—to experiences they remember only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. Postmemory’s connection to the past is thus actually mediated not by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. To grow up with overwhelming inherited memories, to be dominated by narratives that preceded one’s birth or one’s consciousness, is to risk having one’s own life stories displaced, even evacuated, by our ancestors…These events happened in the past, but their effects continue into the present.”5It all comes down to thisfig. 26 postmemory of women in publicfig. 25 photographed instances of the male gaze5554 An experience’s commonplaceness does not diminish its power over the embodied experience. Postmemory would suggest that precisely because it has happened repeatedly over an extended period of time spanning generations, it is more affective. This perhaps raises more questions than it answers. For example, am I affected by my mother’s experiences? Do her experiences after my birth affect me differently than the ones before it? Am I an introvert because the home and the self was the safest place for my maternal ancestors? The last question might be a bit of a stretch, but it does start to question the extents of intergenerational trauma and postmemory. These theories have similar pitfalls to implicit memory, where there is a danger of oversimplification and the attribution of absolutely everything to them, but that should not stop us from speculating. If we categorize women’s experiences in the public realm as trauma, and this thesis has tried to do just that, then it follows that this trauma is passed down through the generations, within the structure of postmemory, for instance. In some cases, revealing itself through gender-specific neuroses and the symbolism of the body. Phenomenology postulates that our memories, lived experiences, and orientation continuously shape our perception of the self and our surroundings. It affects our experience of the now. Therefore, this gendered trauma affects every woman’s current experience of space, which has critical and intricate architectural implications. How is the phallocentrism of architecture perpetuating this trauma? How can we de-centre the male experience in our designs of public space? Does the typology change, and in what way? Or perhaps, we are placing too much importance on architecture and are simply centring ourselves in the narrative instead. I would argue that, although true to an extent, it is a privileged position to wash your hands clean and claim that we simply do not have the power to enact change. I am a woman before I am a designer. My orientation to the world is as a woman, occupying space in a patriarchal society. I do not have the privilege, or any desire, to ignore that reality. So, what can I do to change it instead? not make it any less traumatic. In fact, Merleau-Ponty’s assertion would imply it has all the more influence in our implicit actions because of its banality. Field MemoryInterpreted the prompt primarily in terms of safety. No feelings towards a public space a commentary in itself?Culturally specific experienceMale dominated space having emotional repercussions - what defines such a space?The gaze was the predominant imagery.fig.275756Story 6I feel safe in public spaces…I don’t know if I have much thought about how I feel. But I feel fine, I feel safe. I guess it depends on what space I am in. If it’s a space that has more males or females in it. I would probably feel safer in a space with more females.One time that I had a negative experience in a public space was in another country, where women couldn’t really have a choice to be out in public. They were expected to work. So when I was walking around with my other female friend, it felt like we were almost being intrusive of the male dominated space and it felt uncomfortable. There was just lots of people staring so we got the sense that we weren’t welcome. We didn’t go outside again in the time we were staying there. I think it was more of a cultural thing. So I don’t think I have that perspective being in public spaces here.I guess for here, I have the perspective that it’s male dominated. So it does feel…not that it doesn’t feel safe but…you kind of feel…lesser than some of the other people in public spaces or in offices. I think being a female engineer working downtown, you feel kind of less than the males in the office space.Field MemoryTaking precautionsNervousness not equated to level of awarenessRepeated mention of time of day - speaks to expectations that these incidents only happen at nightCoping methodConcern for physical safetyEven though it was a field memory, the drawing’s point of view is as an observerImportant elements: Trees, slope, the inequality of positions (seated vs standing), no one else aroundfig. 285958Story 7I feel…pretty normal in public spaces. Sometimes depending on the place I will be aware that I am a woman and that I’m visible minority, because of my hijab but other than that…I don’t have any particular feelings. I don’t get nervous or anything, at least not now. When I’m alone I tend to be more aware of my surroundings and who’s around. Usually when I go out, even if I’m going to do my laundry, which is a few feet away from my place, I always make sure to have my phone and I make sure that it’s charged. At night, it makes a difference who I am with. If I’m by myself or group of girls I’m definitely more aware. If I’m with a guy that I know and trust I usually don’t worry at all.I was in Toronto, my first time there just touring the city. There was a park by the place we were staying, Olympic Park. It’s a really small parklet. I was with my friend, in broad daylight. We were sitting on a sloped grassy area and just chatting. Then, somebody came up to us and I could tell right away that he was drunk and just trying to make conversation I guess. It was an awkward situation because he was standing and we were sitting. And he was drunk and it was broad daylight. I remember I noticed right away that, although it was day, it was a secluded area in the park. He was asking all of these questions and he was being a little racist. But I just answered the questions to try and…I don’t know..normalize it I guess. My friend was then like okay this isn’t going anywhere and said, “have a nice day, we have to leave now” and he started swearing and then walked off. Then I grabbed my friend and got out of there. My concern the whole time was if he is going to chase us. He was pretty young and a bigger guy. I was really afraid he was going to get aggressive but he didn’t. Afterwards, we went to the main street and just sat on a bench. My friend was saying you know, as women we need to learn all these lines that when you feelingssafetynaturalized thinkingStory annotation legendspacetimeSpeaking to a much larger societal issueWould I get involved?Where she goes is determined by what other people do - creates dependency on other people6160Looking Back In the process of developing this thesis, it has become apparent that the universality of women’s traumatic experiences in the public realm still needs to be demonstrated and proven. I want to use this thesis as a vehicle to share these lived experiences. The stories presented in this book are the result of a series of interviews with women I know personally. To help the participants pick a specific memory to share, the realm of the public space was narrowed down to plazas. However, the definition of a plaza was taken loosely, and I did not exclude any memories that fell outside of it. Although there was a list of questions, it was important to maintain a conversational nature to the interviews. Firstly, to ensure that the participants felt comfortable and safe to share their stories, and secondly, to challenge what we value as sufficient evidence as a society and as a discipline. I have transcribed the interviews and did not edit the language of the stories. I also asked each of the participants to produce a sketch relating to the memory they recalled. It was intentionally left open-ended to see what scale, perspective, and level of detail they choose to include. These are their stories, exactly as they shared them.Below is the list of questions asked from each participant, which were meant as prompts to facilitate the conversation:1. What are your preferred pronouns? 2. How do you feel when you are in a public space? 3. Is there a difference for you when you are alone as opposed to when you are with others? find yourself in a situation like that, you say, “my boyfriend is coming,” or “my brother is coming,” make sure you say that you are with a man. And this never happened to me before, I guess the feminist in me was like No! I don’t need to lie about that! But I just remember that I was really shook. I know nobody else saw it so, I was thinking if somebody has witnessed that or if I had witnessed that happening, what would I have done? The thing that was the most jarring was it was during the day that it happened. So, I think ever since then, whenever I go out in public spaces I just try not to be in secluded areas. I tried to think if I was by myself, it would have been even more dangerous. Even though I had a friend it still happened so. Just…where there is a lot of people around, I try to stay there.In general, the older I got the more confident I became in myself as a person. When I was younger I was much more conscious of myself and my image of how I appeared to others, as a woman but especially a Muslim woman. But now it’s not at the forefront. Except for at night. If I travel by myself, I almost never leave my hotel during the night.63623. SketchesThe drawings were all completed within 5 minutes, even though no time constraint was presented. They lack any great detail, which is anticipated; however, what is chosen to be drawn is indicative of what is important to the participant. Merleau-Ponty speculated that after multiple times of remembering an event, all that remains of the initial experience are its essential forms. These sketches represent the essential forms of their memories. 4. Comfort and SafetyWhen asked how they felt in public spaces, most participants interpreted that in terms of either comfort or safety. They continued to speak about their experience in those terms throughout the conversation, even though neither word was prompted. The concept of safety is interlinked with the outside, where the home is safe (except when it isn’t), and anything outside of it is unsafe. We are repeatedly told that as children, so it is not surprising that when asked about how they feel outside, the participants chose to interpret that in terms of safety. It also important to note that canonically, how women feel in public has been studied in terms of safety, not whether they are happy or sad, so when asked to describe their feelings in an academic setting (since the participants were aware this interview was for a thesis project), they may have defaulted to safety. Comfort is more complex to interpret because it can encompass many other feelings, including safety. Perhaps feeling comfortable or uncomfortable is a more holistic response, which includes include feelings of safety and contentment, ease, stress, anxiety, etc. 5. Other peopleEvery story mentioned how many people were around at the time and whether they engaged with them. Some indicated that there were too many people, others that there were not enough, while a few pointed out that no one reacted when they were being harassed. 6. Wandering in public space It has become clear that public space is not used casually by women. It is not a space that they stroll through without a specific purpose or intentionality, and if they do, they make sure not to appear as though they are. The reasons mentioned have been not to seem vulnerable, be observed, put themselves in danger, or invite attention. There needs to be a specific activity to invite 4. Do you feel differently when you are with women vs men? 5. Can you recall a particular experience you have had in a plaza, could be positive/negative/neutral? Something that has stuck with you or jumps out.6. Please describe this memory. (Further questions were asked based on the story told by the participant) 7. In this memory, are you an observer or are you seeing it through your own eyes? 8. Please sketch something related to this memory. 9. Do you think that experience affects how you feel in plazas now? The analyses of the stories collected thus far reveal a few common themes.1. Nature of the memoriesThe prompt to recall a particular experience did not specify what aspect of the memory to focus on, either emotional or factual. The participants generally classified their memories as field memories; they remembered it through their own eyes, meaning that their recollection was accessing the feelings associated with their experience. The only participant that identified an observer memory recalled an experience that she had more than ten years ago, and memories usually evolve into observer memories with time. There are two possible, but not exclusive, explanations for the dominance of field memories. Firstly, the questions leading up to the recall prompted the participant to think about their experience in terms of their feelings. Secondly, the memories they were recalling were emotional experiences of being harassed or participating in social protests. These experiences were memorable because they were emotional; they did not hold factual significance.2. Level of detailExplicit memories that are subconsciously encoded are done so because the brain deems them significant, based on their lived experiences. The details of the memories are signifiers of what each participant’s brain considered important. Most of the stories did not have high levels of detail - general setting, number of people around, what they were doing. This is tied to the fact that these were not observer memories, meaning objective circumstances were not the focus of either the memory or the retrieval. 6564women to a public space, such as a plaza, which implicates the verb essence of architecture. What if we interpret public space in terms of actions, and how does that influence its design?7. AnxietyIt is the predominant emotion expressed by most participants. Their lived experiences and implicit memories make them feel anxious in similar situations. Anxiety is a complex emotion that could be indicative of many other factors, as well as encompass other emotions. There is a spectrum of anxiety, from feeling a slight unease to debilitating anxiety, which prevents you from carrying on your daily activities. Each person’s tolerance and definition of that spectrum may vary, so it is difficult to draw comparisons. It may have to be enough to simply say many of the participants feel anxious in public spaces. 8. The night has not been taken back Nighttime still presents a problem. The participants continue to feel the most unsafe walking alone at night compared to any other time of the day. Turns out, putting lamp-posts up in streets does not solve all the problems. Women’s experience of the city is drastically different from day to night; where they walk, where they gather, and how they move all change depending on the time of day.9. Naturalized behavioursIn conversation, the participants presented some ideas or behaviours matter-of-factly, that if bracketed, reveal them as responses to naturalized attitudes. These are behaviours that should not be typical or expected, but nonetheless are:you need to be more aware of situations you are surrounding yourself with. It’s a public park in the middle of the city you shouldn’t have to be thinking extra that your safety might not be guaranteed.putting your headphones in and your hood up, just making yourself look like you’re on a mission and going somewhere is a way to protect yourself from people thinking you don’t know where you are. I’m not going to walk up the greenway at night, I’m going to walk up a main street. 10. MemorabilityPlazas are, in fact, not memorable spaces. They did not elicit any unique reactions or memories. No one exclaimed with their favourite plaza. They do not make an impression. They are only remembered because of an event, incident, or emotional experiences. They are not destinations or places of pause but rather transitory spaces. if I’m going to do my laundry, which is a few feet away from my place, I always make sure to have my phone and I make sure that it’s charged When you find yourself in a situation like that, you say, “my boyfriend is coming,” or “my brother is coming,” make sure you say that you are with a man. It happens a lot that people come - strangers come - and talk to you it’s very normal for people to approach you and just talk to you when you don’t necessarily want be talked to every time it was just the two of us going to public spaces at night, we would always be watching for cops it’s pretty typical to not want to spend time alone in plazas Part IISo then6968Memory 1I really want to be part of this discussion circle today. The girls made the last one sound really engaging and fruitful. I have ideas to share, things to say. I want to participate. Just hope I can get through it today. I have to at least try. My therapist will be proud of me for trying. I will be proud of me too. Okay here we go. Don’t forget to breath. in. out. in. out. I can see a lot of people there. All standing in a circle in the assembly area. in. out. Maybe I will just take a walk around before joining in. I will try to collect myself at one of the comfort stations first. They usually seem to help. Not too busy in the rest of the plaza today. Everyone must be at the beach. It’s such a beautiful day. What a relief. in. out. I always loved the sound of footsteps on a gravel path. One of those ASMR type shit. It cuts through the noise. Grounds me. Centres me. I think I’ll just stand at this one. Not as sheltered as the one on the other side but I think I will be fine in this one today. Hope so anyway. The noise of the street isn’t as loud here through the trees. I just appreciate the screen. Can’t take all the eyes on me. Like they are judging my every move, waiting for a breakdown. Well not today! I can over come this. I want to add my voice to the discussion. I have to try. in. out. Rubbing my hands along this bar is helping. I’m starting to tell where I end again. in. out. Ok. Maybe I should try going back to the circle. Just don’t forget to breath. in. out. in. out. I will just stay on the outside by the seats. in. out. People just need to stop turning and looking at me. in. out. I don’t need that. in. out. Okay just focus on the discussion. I’ll close my eyes. No! not closing my eyes. in. out. in. out. My heart is beating out of my chest. My palms are so fucking sweaty. in.out. I’m losing me. It’s taking over. in. out. in. out. in. out. I can’t breathe. inout. I need to get out of here. inout. in. out. in. out. in. out. Where the hell is that other pod?! I need to space. Away from all these people and their eyes. their noise. in. out. ok. ok. here we go. Just need to sit down and find myself again. I must be in there somewhere. in. out. I like the texture of this surface better. I feel it more. I feel me more. in. out. I really wish I could have stayed. in. out. I wanted to stay. Maybe…one day I will. For now, I just need to get home. One step on a gravel path at a time. Franca16h11 - 16h36fig. 29-327170fig. 33-347372The definition of ideal is left intentionally ambiguous to allow you to construct your own reality of the ideal.7574What now?In an ideal world, what would you use public space for?Self-expression? Hanging out with your friends? Exercise? People watching? Meeting strangers? Walking around at night with your headphones? These are a few women’s answers to that question, but what is yours? What is mine?This is an exploration of that question and into ways in which we perceive space. Through stories. Photographs. And a film. I will let you decide where to draw the line between reality and fiction. But before we start our story, I would like to ask you for a favour. This is usually the point when the discussion turns towards issues of safety and security, and rightly so. We all deserve to feel safe in any space. However, I don’t think that design alone can solve that particular problem, and it is certainly not for lack of trying. We have put up lamp posts, cameras, security guards, and even if they help, women still get harassed and assaulted in broad daylight in the middle of the city while on camera. So while design can mitigate, often at the expense of the marginalized and disenfranchised groups, we need a much significant social and cultural change to occur for women to feel safe. So, the favour I have to ask is this. For the duration of the time that you spend on this book, I invite you to imagine a world “Feminist critique depends on a desire for something else. There is a sense that there are other possibilities beyond the discursive status quo. There is a notion of things that are not representable in masculinist discourse, but which women themselves may sense if not articulate. The subject of feminism insists that spaces are extraordinarily complex ... Its multidimensionality refers to complicated and never self- evident matrix of historical, social, sexual, racial and class positions which women occupy, and its geometry is one strung out between paradoxical sites.”1–– Gillian Rosefig. 357776where this shift has occurred, where safety is not our main and only concern for how women feel and use space, and we can begin to think about every other aspect of a woman’s embodied experience. It is, of course, not to say that we pretend like these concerns never existed. In fact, they have deep-rooted and lasting effects. In the subject-object duality of a woman’s embodiment, the public realm firmly asserts an objectified existence. It is no accident that agoraphobia, a socially and spatially mediated neurosis, affects women disproportionally at eighty-five percent of all agoraphobes. The crisis of boundary identified by agoraphobes is perhaps most intensely felt in our modern-day plazas, where the recent trend has been to under-design to create more so-called flexible spaces. This often means a wide-open space with a few seating options around the periphery. Agoraphobia is an extreme case of how the experience of space can be different for women, but even for those who do not identify as agoraphobes, big open public spaces are not enjoyable. As evidenced by the stories in the first part of this book, women do not tend to spend time in public plazas on their own if they don’t have to be there, but in a time and location that space is so valuable, this is a waste and misuse of land. So, in our imagined future, what do women want to do in public spaces?7978Memory 2can’t wait to take a few minutes at the plaza…running errands with a five year old can be so exhausting sounds like there is something going on there..maybe another discussion circle hopefully it distracts her long enough to stand still for a minute…wouldn’t that be a drea––oh, no! she’s going the wrong way, too mesmerized by the blossoms to pay any attention to me think we can just loop back if we keep going have to catch up to her first––yeah a dream alright…few people here today must be an important topic better put her on the platform so she can see––guess the skateboarders are steering clear of this area this afternoon…don’t blame them with all these people blocking the platforms––so she can see the moderator of the discussion okay there we are seems to be working just gonna rest my feet here a little too I remember when this area used to be a big open space…things would happen every once in while in the periphery but this space was usually empty just people passing through a protest or demonstration a few times a year but that’s about it didn’t like it much made me uncomfortable I heard somewhere––god the number of times I got catcalled here–– heard they designed this big open space to make it flexible but it really just meant no one kne––wow she really is just listening––no one knew what to do with it on a daily basis mean what would I even do with her in a space like that… let her run a couple laps––now if she would just stop leaning on me we would be golden––a couple of laps around and then what…how would she engage with her city how would she know she belongs…who belongs in a wide open space with a few chairs around it her place isn’t just in the playground or the mall or the park she belongs here everywhere it belongs to her and I want her to feel that in her bones love that breeze weaving its way through the trees and rustling the leaves filters some of the street noise awa––the person over there seems to be having a bit of a hard time…reminds me of my mom’s panic attacks when we were out in crowded places she would say she felt like she was losing herself couldn’t tell where she ended and the world began…or the world ended and she began she was so happy when they started installing the comfort stations and pods in public spaces gave her the courage to try again…knowing she had some sort of safety net a place to retreat when it all becomes too much––hope this person can find themselves again ok we have to get going now need to get her home for dinner wonder what we are having tonig––looks like she wants to take the long way around might as well a walk through the blossoms is always lovely––oh a new wall is covered up someone must be painting it we will need to come back and see it when it’s done I’m sure she is going to have a lot to say about it I keep bringing her everywhere with me let her explore and run free engage with people and participate in her city hoping she figures out who she is in the middle of all of this finds herself and never loses it and even if she does at least I know the city is there to hold her hand I hopeDhiya16h21 - 17h03fig. 368180Let’s talk about films Have you ever seen La Jetée by Chris Marker? If not, drop everything and do it right now. It is a science-fiction film composed entirely of still photographs with voiceover narration and a soundtrack. The first time I watched it, I was struck by my lack of need for motion in the film. It was as if my mind was constructing the movement between the still frames or perhaps, and arguably more interestingly, we process and remember in fragments of images. When I think back at all the films I’ve seen, I remember moments, scenes, fragments, but I do not recall the motion in those scenes (unless I prompt myself to do so). My initial and instinctive recall is of still images, almost as if the movements are irrelevant…and perhaps they are. Agnes Varda, a French film director instrumental to the development of the French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s, believed that cinema is supposed to produce effects in our “mental” movie theatre, which is already occupied by images and sounds. There is an ongoing movie in our minds in which the film that we watch comes in, and mixes and “the perception of all these images and sounds proposed to us...piles up in our memory with other images, other associations of images.”1 This is a similar notion as the Deleuzian Ciné-system, where the images we see and sounds we hear on the screen interact with our existing knowledge, perception and experiences.2 Film has already proven to be a medium capable of communicating the highly personal nature of perception, as evidenced by films like Hiroshima mon amour or Cléo de 5 à 7. If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.–– Agnes Vardafig. 37-42 fig. 438382It allows the viewer to be immersed in the character’s world, experience her thoughts, memories, gazes, and come to understand her and her experience. The question then is how vital is motion in this process and whether the already existing movements in our mental movie theatres can fulfill that role. Can a film of still photographs depict a woman’s phenomenological experience of public space? The film developed for this thesis is an experiment to find the answer to that question. It is also an analysis of that experience. The subversive act is allowing the story, and the film, to construct the space rather than let the naturalized attitudes about the space shape the narrative. We centre the individual, her actions, ambitions, dreams, goals. Then, begin to imagine the world she would be occupying and her experiences in that world. The first-person point of view allows the story to show us the internal complexities of these characters by depicting their memories, thoughts, what they linger on or rushes past, and try to communicate the feelings that emerge through the experience of a space. This perspective is fundamental in the portrayal of a woman’s phenomenological journey from object to subject. It would not be enough to simply look at someone moving through this space. That would tell us nothing of her internal evolution because we would still be kept at arm’s length, looking at her, participating in her objectification. We need to be placed inside her body. We need to shift from looking at her to looking through her.fig. 44-468584fig. 47-5187868988Memory 3Ayan15h48 - 16h52This croissant is delicious; never regret a croissant. hope the wall is still available; should have come earlier but honestly have no idea where the day went; wake up, eat, do a bit of this and a bit of that then poof! Such a beautiful day though; the trees blossoming; the colours; the smell; maybe I will use a similar colour palette in my work today. I can’t believe they didn’t have all this greenery here before; can’t imagine this plaza without them; stark; bare; naked; exposed; empty. Why? It looks like there is another discussion circle going on today; wonder what it’s about; climate; justice; future; past. Damn it! There is a line for the plaza rental; really really really hope they’re not after the new art wall; should have come earlier; I had the idea for the painting this morning; why did I only get here; just have to wait and see. The early light trickling into my room this morning; shadows dancing; shapes evolving. I’m loving this spring breeze; not too busy in the plaza today; everyone must be at the beach; I should go there myself later; don’t want to miss out on these rare sunny–– Is the new art wall on the North corner still available? It’s all yours, as long as you don’t mind the cutouts. Amazing! Can I rent a supply box then, please? ––sweeeeet! Wonder how much of it I will actually get done today. I should take the winding route across the plaza; soak in a little inspiration or whatever; a little odd having this gravel path in the middle of the city but I’m into it; the crunch under the feet; change of texture; change of sound. Looks like someone is using the comfort stations; hope they are doing alright but the assist marker isn’t up so they must not need help; I’ll just go around. In just a couple of weeks, you won’t be able to find a single spot on the grass; picnics; dates; afternoon naps; people who want to take in the plaza; watch it; interact with it; use it; touch it; change it; not as busy quite yet. The wall should be just around here; they weren’t kidding about the holes but I think I can make it work; might even add to the effect; shapes evolving around; depth and shadow. I will just outline the shapes for today I think; work around the cutouts; with them. What should I have for dinner tonight; the short story I was reading earlier about a special meal that becomes a good memory; what can I have that will be memorable? What time is it; want to go to the beach and eat; I’ll come back tomorrow; first thing; no more procrastinating; the cover on, just in case it rains because you never know! All set; better hurry down to the beach now before everyone leaves; how am I always late. oooh maybe I’ll have pizzašxʷƛ̓ənəq (hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language)šxʷ = Sounds similar to: “shh”ƛ̓ = Begins like “t” then releases into the “l” sound described below(ɬ) = Place tongue as you would to pronounce an “l” and then simply blow a steady stream of air past the side of your tongue.ənəq = Rhymes with the first four letters of the word “unaccountable”Xwtl’e7énḵ (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh language)Xw = Sounds like wh in “what” but with more friction on the roof of the mouthtl’ = Like a t and an l combined, but poppede = Sounds like the i in “bill”7 = A glottal stop. Found in the beginning each “uh” in “uh-oh”é = Sounds like the i in “bill”, but the accent means this vowel is stressedn = Sounds like the n in “no”k = Made by raising the very back of the tongue to touch the soft palate9190šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ SquareLet’s set the scene. It is ____ years in the future. We are in šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ square, located on the North side of the Vancouver Art Gallery.The plaza was redesigned after a long and thorough participatory design process. It was revealed that most of the community did not enjoy the barren square and found it was usually wasted. It was important to still maintain a space where people can gather for protests and larger events but that it still be a useful and usable space every other day of the year. A point was made to ensure the inclusion of historically underrepresented voices, including women, LGBTQ2S+ community and children.This is a look at one possible version of that future – my version – informed by my experiences, memories, aspirations, dreams, imagination. It is not to propose an ideal plaza design but rather exploring a process that starts from individuals and their stories.fig. 52-729392fig. 739594Film blurb In this film, we follow three women’s experience of šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ square. They walk through the same plaza but react to and notice varying aspects of it, reflective of their own individual orientations and perceptions. The first story follows an agoraphobic woman as she tries to participate in a community discussion but is ultimately overwhelmed by the experience. She finds momentary respite in the sensory pods installed by the city that allows for a reset of her boundary. The second character has come to the plaza for a moment’s rest with her young daughter and reflects on her memories of the plaza and finally the last character is a young woman who has come to the plaza to paint the newly installed wall from the scraps of a construction site a few block away.There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.–– Octavia E. Butlerfig. 749796c l i ck h e re t o wat ch Ago ra | th re e s t o r i e sfig. 75-959998fig. 96-116101100fig. 117-137103102fig. 138105104I guess this is it... The idea for this film was ignited by a simple question I asked the women in my life. Ideally, what would you use public space for? It is important for me to start from actions, things people actually want to do in a space that, by definition, belongs to them. It is about engaging with the verb essence of architecture and beginning our design process from that departure point. You can call a space a square, plaza, or a park. It does not change the actions it is designed for or what people choose to do there. So, we need to make the conscious decision to design for the actions and not the names. Then, we can begin to imagine how those actions can unfold in a typical day, not from a collective standpoint but on an individualized basis. Imagine those moments, which, as evidenced by the film, is really how we experience and remember – in moments, fragments, frames. By constructing narratives based around these moments in time, we can access the phenomenological experience of those moments and delve into the profoundly personal perception of that space. And only then can we start to spatialize and design them. It is an approach which forces you to consider who you are designing for, thinking about their story, about their lived and embodied experiences, and recognizing that multiplicity. In this case, although informed by interviews and surveys, the In thinking about a public space designed for women, it is vital to reject a separatist or exclusionary approach, which does not address the root of the problem and continues to centre the male-dominant culture. So, where do we begin?I think it starts with questions.fig. 139fig. 140107106stories were all products of my imagination. It is ultimately highly personal. Perhaps the three characters are versions of myself, projecting a worst case, a best case, and an aspirational scenario of what my relationship with the public space could be. Or perhaps I should not psychoanalyze myself. Regardless, there is a version of this film where the stories are each imagined and told by different individuals, bringing their unique lived experiences to the table, and sharing their future memories of the public plaza. The film and the process of making it has brought me to believe that if we start from actions people want to take in a space, work through it narratively and through a lens of perception, then the spaces we design can enfold and reveal themselves differently than what we may presume or expect. This thesis started as an investigation of women’s experience of space through a lens of phenomenology and memory, but I think it is really about stories. It has always been about the stories. The stories we are told, the ones we tell others, and the ones we tell ourselves, the stories that we feel but don’t remember and the ones we choose to forget. Our lives are stories, and the surroundings the setting. They are in constant interplay, and if we have the chance to change one, even if just a little bit, to improve the other, shouldn’t we take it?If you can imagine something, it will be.–– N. K. Jemisin109108NotesPart I | WellOn Phenomenology1. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, vii.2. Al-Saji, Feminist Phenomenology, 145.3. Dermot, Introduction of Phenomenology, 417.4. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 7.5. Al-Saji, Feminist Phenomenology, 144.6. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 140.7. Dermot, Introduction of Phenomenology, 424.8. Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology. The theories of this book are not discussed explicitly, but the spirit of the ideas are inherent to the subject matter.9. Beauvoir, The Second Sex, xiiv.10. Beauvoir, 36.11. Beauvoir, 34.12. Young, “Throwing like a Girl,” 54.13. Fielding, Feminist Phenomenology Futures, 155.14. Archibald, Indigenous Storywork, 129.Memory...and another thing1. Schacter, Searching for Memory, 63.2. Schacter, 43.3. Schacter, 46.4. Schacter, 27.5. Schacter, 23.6. Schacter, 21-22.7. Schacter, 161.8. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 441.1111109. Merleau-Ponty, 86.10. Pallasmaa, Spatial Recall, 26.11. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 277.12. Pallasmaa, Spatial Recall, 28.13. Merleau-Ponty, 187.14. Merleau-Ponty, 23.15. Merleau-Ponty, 85.16. Al-Saji, Feminist Phenomenology, 146.17. Young, “Throwing like a Girl,” 144-145.Right...architecture1. Shirazi, Phenomenological Interpretation of Architecture, 13.2. Pallasmaa, Questions of Perception, 35.3. Pallasmaa, 42.4. Pallasmaa, Eyes of the Skin, 41.5.Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, 48.6. Grosz, Architecture from the Outside, 49.7. Pallasmaa, Eyes of the Skin, 40.8. Pallasmaa, Spatial Recall, 28.9. Grosz, Architecture from the Outside, 25.Women’s (our) Trauma1. Costa Meyer, “La Donna è Mobile,” 7.2. Costa Meyer, 11.3. Costa Meyer, 12.4. Davidson, “... The World Was Getting Smaller,” 35.5. Davidson, Phobic Geographies, 17.6. Davidson, 103-104.7. Young, “Throwing like a Girl,” 154.8. Atkinson, Traumata. The book is structured at a memoir with neuroscience, pop psychology, and feminist theories woven through the story.9. Kern, Feminist City, 73.10. Kern, 75.11. “Mobile Loitering,” Atelier Masomi, atelier masōmī, http://www.ateliermasomi.com/young-architects-in-africa-competition.12. Montserrat Miller. Feeding Barcelona, 1714-1975: Public Market Halls, Social Networks, and Consumer Culture. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015), 41.13. Kern, Feminist City, 66.Another thing about memory1. Methot, Legacy, 18-19.2. Methot, 21.3. Ross et al., “Impact of Residential Schooling,” 187.4. Fodor, Ethnic Subjectivity, 27.5. Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory,” 106-107.5. Hirsch, 109.6. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 86.Part II | So thenWhat now?1. Brown, Feminist Practices, 5. Quoting Gillian Rose’s Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (1993).Let’s talk about films1.Quart, Varda, “Agnes Varda: A Conversation,” 7.2. Colman, Deleuze and Cinema, 22.113112Figure CitationsPart I | Well1. Participant A. Memory Sketch. November 2020. Scanned hand sketch.2. Author. Phenomenological snapshot. September 2020. Illustration.3.Author. Dominant phenomenological timeline. October 2020. Illustration.4. Author. Feminist phenomenological timeline.November 2020. Illustration.5. Author. Integrated phenomenological timeline. 2020. Illustration.6. Participant B. Memory Sketch. December 2020. Scanned hand sketch.7. Pierre Bonnard, Nude in an Interior, 1935, Oil paint on canvas, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/asset/ANGAIG_10314015927.8. Pierre Bonnard, Le Jardin, 1935, Oil paint on canvas, Musée d&art moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris. https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822003887518.9. Author. multiple exposure living room. December 2019. Photograph.10. Author. film | memory. April 2017. Film stills.11. Author. Chapel of St. Igantius door handle. February 2020. Photograph.12. Author. Stairway kitchen. January 2014. Photograph.13. Author. Linen. December 2014. Photograph.14. Author. Seattle Freeway Park. February 2020. Photograph.15. Author. plazas. 2005-2020. Photographs.16. Author. Plaza figure ground studies. November 2020. Illustration.17. Author. Sinking ship garage February 2020. Photograph.18. Participant C. Memory Sketch. November 2020. Scanned hand sketch.19. Participant D. Memory Sketch. November 2020. Scanned hand sketch.20. Author. Women’s space. November 2020. Digital collage using open source 115114photographs. Women sitting on bench. 2018. Photograph. https://medium.com/twain-domain/a-womans-place-in-public-spaces-d7e7a5278f5c Nina Leen. College Girls in Slacks. 1942. Photograph. https://www.vintag.es/2019/02/college-girls-in-slacks-1940s.html Mario de Biasi. Gli italiani si voltano. 1954. Photograph. Archivio Mario De Bias. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/oct/27/between-art-fashion-photographs-from-the-collection-of-carla-sozzani Commuters board an over-crowded Metro train in Paris. 2015. Photograph. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sexual-harassment-france-new-poster-campaign-aims-shame-and-deter-public-transport-sex-pests-a6729296.html John Singer Sargent. Leaving Church, Campo San Canciano, Venice. 1882. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C.. https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-singer-sargent/leaving-church-campo-san-canciano-venice Name unknown. 1967. Photograph. http://www.thechicflaneuse.com/49-vintage-photos-men-staring-women/ Ruth Orkin. American Girl in Italy. 1951. Photograph. Ruth Orkin Photo Archive. https://www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/american-girl/21. Author. plaza memories. November 2020. Video stills.22. Author. Historical overview of the women’s relationship with the ‘agora’. January 2021. Illustration.23. Participant E. Memory Sketch. November 2020. Scanned hand sketch.24.Author. bedroom. October 2019. Photograph.25. Author. photographed instances of the male gaze. November 2020. Collage using open source photographs. Mario de Biasi. Gli italiani si voltano. 1954. Photograph. Archivio Mario De Bias. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/oct/27/between-art-fashion-photographs-from-the-collection-of-carla-sozzani First woman to run Boston Marathon. 1967. Photograph. https://www.monstrousregimentofwomen.com/2015/04/kathrine-switzer-run-kathy-run.html Women sitting on bench. 2018. Photograph. https://medium.com/twain-domain/a-womans-place-in-public-spaces-d7e7a5278f5c Commuters board an over-crowded Metro train in Paris. 2015. Photograph. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sexual-harassment-france-new-poster-campaign-aims-shame-and-deter-public-transport-sex-pests-a6729296.html Ruth Orkin. American Girl in Italy. 1951. Photograph. Ruth Orkin Photo Archive. https://www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/american-girl/ Louis J. Turofsky. Women wearing shorts in public. 1937. Photograph. https://www.vintag.es/2013/05/shorts-out-in-public-for-first-time-1937.html Name unknown. 1968. Photograph. http://www.thechicflaneuse.com/49-vintage-photos-men-staring-women/ Yale Joel. A woman modeling a ‘bag’ dress. 1960. Photograph. https://www.vogue.com/article/street-harassment-universal-age-old Name unknown. 1974. Photograph. http://www.thechicflaneuse.com/49-vintage-photos-men-staring-women/ Off-duty models. 1953. Photograph. https://eleganzamagazine.com/category/fashion/26. Author. postmemory of women in public. November 2020. Collage Illustration. (refer to above for source image citations).27. Participant F. Memory Sketch. November 2020. Scanned hand sketch.28. Participant G. Memory Sketch. November 2020. Scanned hand sketch.Part II | So then29-51. Author. thesis series. 2021. Photographs.52-73. Author. šxwƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ square series. 2021. Photographs.74. Author. agora | three stories title card. April 2021. Film Still.75-137. Author. agora | three stories. April 2021. Film Stills.138-140. Author. thesis series. 2021. Photographs.117116BibliographyAhmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.Al-Saji, Alia. Feminist Phenomenology. 1st ed. The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy. Routledge, 2017.Archibald , Jo-Ann. 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In Good Relation : History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous 121120Appendix ANaturemusic(headphones)FunctionalityRental boothConversation/ chatterAudible dialogueNatureAgoraphobia EngagementNarrowLook at the pastSelf-expressionEasyTensionLooking DownTextureComfort PodsTactilitylow vantageLooking upAssembly CircleSeatingArt wallMovementFragmentsHope for the futureBreathingNoiseExtreme DistortionsFlashes to current plazawider shotspan aroundno distortionsSlight distortionsBelonging/ownershipLandscapeLong exposureFilm’s narrative organiztionStory 1 Story 2 Story 3123122Appendix BStoryboards125124127126128that’s it"@en ; edm:hasType "Graduating Project"@en ; dcterms:spatial "Vancouver (B.C.)"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0397491"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:peerReviewStatus "Unreviewed"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:rights "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International"@* ; ns0:rightsURI "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/"@* ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:isPartOf "University of British Columbia. ARCH 549"@en ; dcterms:subject "Feminism"@en, "Phenomenology"@en, "Public Space"@en, "Memory"@en, "Film"@en ; dcterms:title "Agora | three stories : women & public space"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/78351"@en .